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​Bethesda Halts Development Of Elder Scrolls Game

Julian Benson

Last updated 10:02 AM, Monday December 09 2019 GMT

Elder Scrolls: Legends, Bethesda's card game set in the popular series' world won't be receiving any more updates or expansions. Despite being in open beta since 2016 and building a loyal following of players, it simply hasn't found the audience the publisher wanted. While it's not a surprise that Elder Scrolls: Legends is being wound down, the abruptness of the announcement is.

Elder Scrolls: Legends will continue to operate

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Legends had another expansion planned for this year and there's long been talk of a console release, however both of these have been scrapped. "Our previous roadmap indicated we would be releasing one more set this year. We decided to put any new content development or releases on hold for the foreseeable future," the game's community manager Chrisian Van Hoose wrote on Reddit. "New expansions and other future content are no longer under active development. We will continue to provide ongoing maintenance support."

That means, at least, that for the time being players will still have access to their game and purchases.

Bethesda is by no means leaving Elder Scrolls games behind, however. Elder Scrolls Online continues to receive expansions and updates, and by all reports is growing its playerbase. Similarly, we know that Bethesda is working on a new full-blooded Elder Scrolls RPG, though we don't even know its actual name beyond Elder Scrolls VI. That's still years off as Bethesda is planning to release its sci-fi RPG, Starfield, first.

While there have been digital card games for years (I for one have racked up a few thousand games of Freecell and Spider Solitaire), the success of Blizzard's Hearthstone spawned a huge number of card game spin-offs of major series. However, as with any genre popularising game, there's only room for a couple of imitators, everything else falls by the wayside after not finding a large enough audience. Sadly, Elder Scrolls: Legends is another gaming casualty.